How Helen Keller Began to Communicate with the World

原文：

"1886, Tuscumbia Alabama. Six year old Helen Keller, leftblind and deaf by illness in her nineteenth month is to her parents an angry,helpless, hopeless puzzle. Feeling her way through familiar surroundings, shelashes out wildly at anything unexpected. A six year old phantom. Lost in anangry dark and silent world. The visiting author, Charles Dickens had writtenof another blind and deaf person, Laura Bridgeman. Living at the Boston schoolfor the blind, where she had learned some Braille and the hand alphabet. Arthurand Kate keller read the article and turned to an expert on deafness, AlexanderGraham Bell. Through his contacts, a young woman soon agrees to to attemptHelen's education.Her name was Anne Sullivan. Raised in a poor-house andpartially blind herself, and of very limited education. She meets a pupil whowould challenge any teacher. A creature who lacks all the charm of naturalchildhood. A hostile phantom, as Helen later describes Who begins her life withAnne on a note of strenuous disobedience. herself. She is physically strong,not easily frightened and very inquisitive. Little escapes her curiosity. Agift wins momentary warmth. But trust will have to be earned. It will take timeand gifts of an entirely different kind. Their contest rages locked away fromthe rest of the family. Simple acts of discipline are learned only after longphysical brawls. The reward: The door to the family unlocked. But Anne alsounlocks a more crucial door. The Manual alphabet. Pressed into Helen's palm,the finger letters at first seem only a game. A- B -C -D - E - F. Then onefateful day their meaning comes springing from a simple act. At the pump, thecold fresh water suddenly stirs in Helen some long buried association, andstartled she reaches out a questioning hand. Intuitively Anne senses an opportunity.Anne presses into Helen's hand the spelling for water: And for the first timethe spelling game has meaning. Helen repeats the letters ; W - A - T - E - R.Things have names. From this day her progress is rapid. Happy in the excitementof communicating with others, she works hard at handwriting. Sends notes to allher family and friends. By the age of eight she is qualified to enter Anne'sown school, Perkins Institute for the Blind, in Boston."